The weight of a green passport
Once upon a time, we watched a bespectacled John Lennon in white with his Japanese wife by his side, singing, "Imagine there's no countries; it isn't hard to do." Then we came across words like "globalisation," "glasnost," "fall of the Berlin Wall," and "end of apartheid" and thought Lennon was probably right, a borderless world can be imagined. Then came Brexit, like another brick in the wall, and fences became fashionable to keep illegal intruders out, like infected zombies in the movie World War Z.
Migration is a natural human propensity; controlling it is a logical consequence. The "not hard" imagined world of a global village is fast becoming a gated community with many grumpy gatekeepers. Some of them have particularly developed allergic reactions to our green passport, as is evident in this year's Henley Passport Index report.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel. Little does it matter that we have a Nobel laureate at the helm and foreign-trained experts behind the drive for good governance restoration; the weightage of our passport has dropped to 100 from last year's 97th slot. As we peer through the rabbit hole of passport rankings, we find ourselves in the league of North Korea, Libya and Afghanistan. Only 38 countries offer us visa-on-arrival privileges.
Travelling to the remaining countries for Bangladeshi citizens, however, is far from pleasant. I have seen travellers being pulled away for further interrogation or overheard the fear of being refused entry at immigration despite having valid visas. The sceptical scan, the little phone call to the supervisor, and the restlessness of the crowd queuing up behind are all part of our experiences of travelling with Bangladeshi passports.
Many economists may equate this phenomenon with "demand drag." Simply put, our travellers are not in demand. Other countries do not want us to show up in theirs. Even when we have valid documents, their data tells them to be wary of us. In a growing political climate of insularity and jingoism, many countries are twitchy about refugees and migrants. They look at Bangladeshi visa applicants through the spreadsheet of risks that include high asylum applications, illegal migration routes through Libya or forged documents.
In 2024 alone, tens of thousands of Bangladeshis applied for asylum in Europe. Frontex, the European Union's border and coast guard agency, labels Bangladesh as the "most detected nationality" on irregular migration routes. And then there are horror stories: migrants chained in Malaysian jungles for ransom, passports confiscated by traffickers in Libya, and Rohingya refugees posing as Bangladeshis getting into criminal acts in the Middle East. Western countries find these tales of modern-day slavery compelling, using them as justifications to tighten their borders. The white man's burden of being humane is thereby relieved, while every Bangladeshi applying for a visa continues to carry the invisible burden of those who didn't come back.
The weakness of our passport is evident when we, as Bangladeshis, are even denied passing through a country as transit passengers. Imagine you want to fly from Toronto to Cancun via America or from Dhaka to Toronto via Frankfurt; your airline agent will tell you to get an airport transit visa. This is a joke: you need a visa, not to enter Europe, but to breathe in its continental air. For Bangladeshis, even the layover has become a luxury.
Before we get too indignant about Western gatekeeping, we also need to know how we have harmed our own reputation. For every honest traveller submitting a clean visa application, there are ten others with a fake bank solvency certificate or a doctored employment letter from a company that exists only on Facebook. Every fake document chips away at collective credibility.
Bangladesh's international image is like a bad student project: a few pupils cheat, and everyone gets punished. When a Bangladeshi student enters Eastern Europe only to use it as a gateway to go west, a Balkan university rethinks its quota next year. When a migrant worker jumps a visa and "games" the system to stay illegally in a foreign country, other genuine candidates suffer for it with a delayed application process and a colder interview. In many cases, the consulate offices have moved out of our country. They operate from affiliated offices to narrow the window of opportunities further. This allows their local agents to act with a holier-than-the-pope attitude, doing the ritual of rejection with sadistic pleasure.
The consistent slide in the passport ranking shows how bruised our national identity is. The world doesn't subscribe to our hollow promises, not because they hate us, but because our paperwork has cried wolf too many times. The appointment of a few international darlings to cabinet positions has visibly failed to melt hearts abroad.
Foreign governments look at long-term data, not short-term optics. Visa liberalisation is based on treaties, reciprocity, and trust metrics, not on who made the best speech at the UN. Political instability, caretaker uncertainties, or transitional headlines don't inspire the confidence needed for mobility deals. We need consistent diplomacy. We need to give a strong signal of reforms to fix the backend. We need data integrity audits to stop the leaks and the forgery pipelines. The actions must be transparent and visible. Cancelled fraudulent passports must also act as deterrents. Such actions must be complemented by our missions abroad. Embassies can take smaller steps to attain small, practical facilities like medical travel and student exchanges instead of grand visa-free fantasies for all workers.
Our overseas consular services need to be proactive in curbing irregular migration and improving documentation. Unless we adopt "perception-change" as a policy, other countries will keep us on probation. Sometimes our glorification of remittance adds to the problem. We sell unrealistic dreams to unskilled workers. And once these dreams are unmet, they long for more and bend the rules to harm our national image on the international stage.
John Lennon can sing his utopian tune, but in the real world, imagination isn't an acceptable travel document. The reality is that Bangladesh's passport will only rise when both the state and the citizens act like partners in credibility, not co-conspirators in chaos. A stronger passport isn't a gift from the powerful; it's a slow accumulation of trust.
Dr Shamsad Mortuza is professor of English at Dhaka University.
Views expressed in this article are the author's own.
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